Eligibility of former ozumo rikishi to participate in IFS sanctioned amateur sumo events

[Inside Sport Japan 762]

Eligibility of former ozumo rikishi (professional sumo wresters) to participate in IFS sanctioned amateur sumo events:

 

Tier 1 (Makuuchi) experience 

Tier 2 (Juryo) experience  (6 months after retirement)

Tiers 3 & 4 (Makushita / Sandanme)  (3 months after retirement)

Tiers 5 (Jonidan) and below  (1 month after retirement)

Rikishi of any level dismissed from the JSA 

[Koorifuu 977]

The last part is a bit awkward, what's that got to do with fairness of competition? Unless they're deliberately trying to maintain close ties with the JSA by not ruffling their feathers.

[Tochinofuji 380]

3 hours ago, Koorifuu said:

The last part is a bit awkward, what's that got to do with fairness of competition? Unless they're deliberately trying to maintain close ties with the JSA by not ruffling their feathers.

To me it makes sense. It's less about "fairness" of competition than it is with the integrity of competition, the organization, and its members. Many, if not most, amateur sports organizations have codes of conduct, and Organization A recognizing that expulsion from Organization B means you would have been expelled from Organization A had you been a member at the time is both rational and prudent. 

There may well be exceptional cases, and those can be dealt with based on their facts through the discretionary power the IFS undoubtedly has. 

Edited August 28, 2024 by Tochinofuji
Typo - "memebers" to members

[Reonito 1,433]

2 hours ago, Koorifuu said:

The last part is a bit awkward, what's that got to do with fairness of competition? Unless they're deliberately trying to maintain close ties with the JSA by not ruffling their feathers.

Outright dismissals are pretty rare, no?

[Yamanashi 3,829]

40 minutes ago, Reonito said:

Outright dismissals are pretty rare, no?

That's what I was thinking.  Most of them are "encouraged to retire."

I'm surprised at the decision re: Juryo.  The IFS could have said "no one who earned a salary" and that would be simpler.

[Asashosakari 19,273]

3 hours ago, Yamanashi said:

That's what I was thinking.  Most of them are "encouraged to retire."

I'm surprised at the decision re: Juryo.  The IFS could have said "no one who earned a salary" and that would be simpler.

Most rikishi who top out in juryo aren't exactly career sekitori.

[Yamanashi 3,829]

7 minutes ago, Asashosakari said:

Most rikishi who top out in juryo aren't exactly career sekitori.

I'm sure that's true.  However, I was (perhaps foolishly) thinking of the old Olympic standard, where any time an athlete took money for performing that sport they'd be rendered ineligible.  It would be very clear, and we wouldn't see the inevitable controversy about whether a one-basho Juryo  rikishi should have to wait as long as a 25-basho Juryo rikishi.

[Gurowake 4,046]

4 hours ago, Yamanashi said:

I'm sure that's true.  However, I was (perhaps foolishly) thinking of the old Olympic standard, where any time an athlete took money for performing that sport they'd be rendered ineligible.  It would be very clear, and we wouldn't see the inevitable controversy about whether a one-basho Juryo  rikishi should have to wait as long as a 25-basho Juryo rikishi.

There are very few rikishi with 25 Juryo basho and no Makuuchi basho.  There's not all that many rikishi with 25 basho in Juryo to begin with - only around 150, and 18 of them have no Makuuchi basho.  And this is for the entire time period that there are records in the database - 4 of those 18 are from the 1800s.  Hakuyozan is the only one active.

http://sumodb.sumogames.de/Query.aspx?show_form=0&group_by=rikishi&showhighest=on&having=25&form1_j=on&gsort_by=high&offset=100

The point is that it's easy to segregate based on highest level achieved, because careers tend to follow the same pattern of topping out at a rank a bit above what they are capable of maintaining.  Some rikishi manage to stay at that level for an extended period of time, but it's not particularly common.  Just random chance will cause anyone who is good enough to be in Juryo for many years to pop up to Makuuchi at least once, except when by random chance it doesn't happen.

Edited August 28, 2024 by Gurowake

[Yamanashi 3,829]

2 minutes ago, Gurowake said:

There are very few rikishi with 25 Juryo basho and no Makuuchi basho.  There's not all that many rikishi with 25 basho in Juryo to begin with - only around 150, and 18 of them have no Makuuchi basho.  And this is for the entire time period that there are records in the database - 4 of those 18 are from the 1800s.  Hakuyozan is the only one active.

http://sumodb.sumogames.de/Query.aspx?show_form=0&group_by=rikishi&showhighest=on&having=25&form1_j=on&gsort_by=high&offset=100

Please repeat your analysis with 10 basho instead of 25.  Then repeat it with 5 basho.  (No, don't).

My point is that there might be grumbling whenever rikishi A has X Juryo basho and rikishi B has Y Juryo basho, where Y > X.  I just used 25 as an extreme case.

Note: Forum participants are free to perform the above analysis for all X and Y.  It might look cool (in a retro way) in Excel.

[Asashosakari 19,273]

This list makes it fairly easy to analyze juryo-high rikishi.

Up to Kizakiumi and Ryuko with juryo debuts in 2019.07, nearly all the listed rikishi have completed their careers already. Only five are marked active, but that group includes two who actually retired recently and just aren't updated yet (Chiyonoumi and Asabenkei), as well as two who definitely won't be adding to their juryo tournament tally (Daiseido and Dairaido), leaving only Hakuyozan as one that should be excluded from analysis.

The earliest rikishi that make sense to include are Asakaze and Kurowashi who reached juryo in 1967.11, the first on the list to do so after the juryo division was given something resembling its modern size. Asakaze to Kizakiumi (ex Hakuyozan), that's a set of 210 rikishi. Sorted by staying power, they're led by Hakuryu with 47 juryo tournaments and Zenshinyama with 37, everybody else has 27 and fewer. To summarize the whole list:

24 basho (4 years) and more: 7 rikishi (3.3%)
21 basho (3.5 years) and more: 12 (5.7%)
18 basho (3 years) and more: 18 (8.6%)
15 basho (2.5 years) and more: 24 (11.4%)
13 basho (>2 years) and more: 34 (16.2%)
12+: 41 (19.5%)
11+: 46 (21.9%)
10+: 54 (25.7%)
9+: 62 (29.5%)
8+: 70 (33.3%)
7+ (>1 year): 86 (41.0%)
6+: 97 (46.2%)
5+: 106 (50.5%)
4+: 123 (58.6%)
3+: 139 (66.2%)
2+: 167 (79.5%)

In short, only about 1 in 6 rikishi who topped out in juryo got to spend more than 2 years in the division, about 2 in 5 spent more than one year, and just about half were there for at least 5 basho, the other half for 4 tournaments or fewer. There are more rikishi (43) who made a single juryo appearance than there are with at least two years (41). Median 5 tournaments, mean 6.94.

The numbers aren't significantly different with a shorter time window. Taking just the most recent 25 years (debuts in 1995-2019.07, 80 rikishi), it's 13+ basho 11 (13.8%), 7+ basho 34 (42.5%), 5+ basho 42 (52.5%), median 5, mean 6.75.

Edit: Since Hakuyozan is in juryo for Aki basho, he's now holding sole third place with 28 tournaments in this era.

Edited August 29, 2024 by Asashosakari

[Inside Sport Japan 762]

14 hours ago, Reonito said:

Outright dismissals are pretty rare, no?

Practically it would almost certainly include those jump-or-get-pushed 'voluntary' retirements.

 

[Katooshu 3,219]

Were there any guidelines before this, or was it a free for all where prior pro experience wasn't relevant to eligibility?

Edited August 29, 2024 by Katooshu